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Residents urge Detroit council to demand transparency in master-plan advisory process and raise concerns about solar projects
Summary
Multiple public commenters told the council they see the master-plan advisory process as nontransparent and said solar-project siting has caused displacement and environmental burdens in neighborhoods; callers asked the council to allow resident participation in advisory meetings and to explain land-swap and relocation policies.
Several residents used the public-comment period to press the council and planning staff for more transparency in the master-plan advisory group process and to raise concerns about solar projects and neighborhood displacement.
One caller said the planning department had been "willfully nontransparent" about who it was meeting with and why residents were not allowed to attend advisory-group meetings. That speaker asked why stakeholders described as "youth" and others were listed as invited participants but ordinary residents were not treated as stakeholders.
Other callers linked ongoing solar initiatives to continuing disinvestment in parts of the city and to displacement fears. A Greenfield Park resident said the way solar projects are being constructed has "demolished our neighborhood, not improved it," and cited concrete-crushing operations in the area as an additional local environmental stressor. Another caller accused earlier economic-development deals of producing localized environmental harm and said the city's process for siting solar arrays had caused hardship for some families.
Council staff said they would forward written responses previously provided by the Legislative Policy Division to public commenters and that the council had received an LPD answer to an earlier inquiry from one caller. No formal council action was taken on the master-plan or solar issues during the meeting; the comments were recorded in the public-comment portion of the agenda.
